In the Lair of the Black Worms
by Dwimor Bispell
Summary: Hyrule Chronicle. 10 years before the first events of 'Ocarina...', the rapidly expanding Goron tribe encounters something unexpected in their mines, leading to an all-out battle for supremacy across Death Mountain. Rated T for gory horror violence.
1. Prologue: The Republic on the Mountain

**In the Lair of the Black Worms**

"_You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum... the shadow, and the flame..."  
_(Saruman, _The Lord of the Rings_)

**Prologue: The Republic on the Mountain**

Greed has always tarred the minds of all sentient species. And it always will.

Throughout the incomprehensible sphere of creation, in every galaxy, world, continent, province and land that a race may call home, there are those who have fallen prey to ceaseless avarice. This is perhaps not unexpected when one considers the driving force behind all instinct – to satisfy one's biological and spiritual needs – those who take what they can are simply fulfilling their natural drives in life, the things that compel each time they wake up to a new day.  
Unsurprisingly, when resources are in fruitful abundance, this need will grow, and grow, until it goes beyond the point of need and enters the realms of endless want. It is not a case of moral deficiency to be so inclined, for all are prey to this tendency in our natures, not only as individuals but as entire populaces as well.

Countless cultures across countless histories have turned to this; taking all that they can, paying no heed to the sometimes grievous consequences, not even considering the possibilities of retribution, be it natural, spiritual, political or personal should they not abate their desires soon. None are degenerates for doing so – but cautious all peoples must be when this state holds sway over their minds and bodies and souls, for careless greed shall soon lead to harm.

* * *

To the north of the realm of Hyrule, standing high and proud above all else in the land, are the Mountains of Hyrule, a great range of hills stretching to the very northernmost end of the continent, creating a vast and nigh-on impassable path to the vast blue oceans beyond, that stretch out as far as even the eagle-eye of a Kokiri can see, their powerful currents guiding brave explorers to strange lands beyond this one.

The mountain pass is a spectacular sight, a testament to the beauty of the Goddesses' creation that is this land. But none of all the rocky peaks in the range are quite as spectacular as Death Mountain, the largest of all the mighty pinnacles in all of Hyrule, reaching so high into the sky that many a young Hylian child glimpsing it from its base has believed its peak to touch the very heavens above, a belief that more than a few of the adults and even the elders have never quite shaken off themselves. Few have ever dared to venture on the perilous climb, however – while the active volcano has never yet posed any significant threat to the populated areas below, its treacherous walkways, long, steep slopes, howling winds, harsh atmospheric conditions and hailstorms of molten rock have seen to it that Death Mountain has more than earned it's sinister moniker.

Unless of course, you happen to be a Goron; creatures seemingly born forth from the rocks beneath their feet and perfectly adapted to the extreme conditions around them.

The race established the settlement known as the Goron City some four years previous to the events that will unfold here, after having lived in various divided tribes across the mountain range for several long centuries. Rivalry between them, while never sinking into bloodshed and war, was always tense and uncomfortable, as the many tribes quibbled and bickered over rights and claims to the natural resources the mountains yielded to them, just as a carefully tended field shall yield abundant crops to a caring and devoted farmer far below in Hyrule Field.  
Under the leadership of Darunia, the wise Goron warrior and champion of the people who had been nominated into leadership for his actions rather than out of any desire to become a political figure, who was assisted by a Council of Elders, the Goron tribes would eventually unite together from across the plains and pinnacles and peaks as a Republic, uniting for the preservation of their species and culture (as yet they had no real formal connections with the Hylian Royal Family) and to ensure that their squabbles would never escalate into a situation the Gorons would live to regret or perish from completely.

They, in short, sought a haven, and the Goddesses answered their prayers – Death Mountain was perfect in all ways for the Goron tribe.

Rich in natural minerals for their consumption, close enough to Hylian settlements as to begin to formulate new and hopefully prosperous relations with the wider world, and large enough to house every single one of the two thousand Gorons who came to call the mountain their home. It even fulfilled their spiritual needs, as an exploration of the massive network of inner caves would reveal the location of the fabled Fire Temple, the place of worship for their long-gone ancestors.  
In those four long years, the Goron colonisation of Death Mountain has become one of the most successful large-scale ventures ever undertaken by any of the tribes. Old differences for the most part forgotten and the tribes unified into one collective, the race has become astoundingly prosperous. Nowhere at that particular time was this better exemplified by the tribe's latest and, if their luck held, most bountiful venture.

Halfway down the mountainside, close to two hours away from the lofty placement of the City, sits a cavern.

A very unique, very important, if rather dark and unpleasant, cavern.

It is a shadowy, oppressive place, filled with disquieting smells and a darkness that seems not to be truly penetrated by the searching beams of oil lanterns. But nonetheless, it is not a place the Gorons would ever be likely to ignore due to a minor case of the jitters. Discovered to be obscenely rich in rock sirloin deposits, the chief source of nourishment for the Gorons, the shadowy, oppressive cave is being slowly excavated and mined of its resources like a perpetual buffet for the increasingly well-off and comfortable tribe in the City up the rocky mountain pathway. It is even being considered that the rapidly expanding tunnel be organised into a thoroughfare, linking the City to the cavern in order to allow the Gorons quicker passage to and fro across their homeland.

And this is where this tale begins – in a place where so many Gorons labour by day, in great numbers and in close-knit teams, working diligently for the continuing happiness of the Republic and its people. In a place they leave each evening as the evening sun sets, flaring orange and pink and red, far away across the beautiful horizon, and try to ignore the feeling that a small part of them won't let go regarding that cave in the mountainside.

That the smell in that cold, shadow-lined place is simply not quite right.


	2. State of Affairs

**Chapter I: State of Affairs**

Mornen thought: '_That stupid old fool.'_

He was thinking of his uncle as that charming epithet floated across his mind. His uncle Morda was the Elder who had sent him to the mining cavern on an inspection tour, as though Mornen had any decent reason for being down here, observing the efforts of the hard-working miners, and had any right to be judging their progress for himself.

It was not as though Mornen was a lazy Goron. Far from it – more and more these days in fact, he found himself wishing that he could simply grab a pick axe of his own and join those who toiled here each day for the good of the Republic. Walking slowly through this extraordinary place, his dark blue eyes glancing all around and not particularly caring about this task of noting what he saw, that yearning was like a powerful scent of volcanic mineral stone, calling for immediate investigation, that frustratingly could not be answered. He felt a certain happiness to see the results of such good diligent labour, and it irked him greatly that to actually put his powerful muscles to good use was seen as social death by his imperious relations in the City.  
He cared little for the formalities and the delusions of grandeur his hopelessly class conscious family were in the grip of these days. And he was glad that the workers here were aware of his distaste for his duty – this unpleasant job would cross over into the realms of unbearable if he'd had to endure malevolent looks from miners disgruntled by this snob, come to crow about how they weren't pulling their (in a Goron's case, considerable) weight. He could be thankful for small mercies, at least.

He pulled himself out his reveries and back to where he was at present. It would be more trouble than it was worth to go back to his sanctimonious uncle and have nothing to report due to constant daydreaming over bitter topics. The progress of the miners had to be noted and carefully regulated, or one Goron or another would suffer for it.

Thankfully, this time it looked like such a thing would not be happening.

The mines had produced an extraordinarily abundant crop this week, as though the deeper they dug the fatter and richer and larger the rock sirloin deposits became. Mornen wondered how close they could come to the core of the world before the resources dried up – from the results they had seen thus far, they could dig to centre of the world and beyond before they ran out. Today was even better – cart upon cart and basket upon basket had been loaded with a huge variety of materials to be sent to the City.  
There was sirloin that would either find itself in the enormous storage caves at the base of the City or on the tables at the Celebration tonight, and great minerals that would converted by newly created processes into valuable medicines. There were even beautiful precious gemstones of all sizes and colours and shapes were being unearthed more and more frequently of late. Where they went was another matter, for no miner could claim such a jewel for his or her own upon discovery. Some were taken by the Elders and placed in a treasury to add to the wealth of the Goron state, whilst others were sent forth to other sovereignties across Hyrule by way of extravagant tributes.  
There, at least, Mornen did not begrudge the hoarding attitudes all the Elders had taken to the mines 'produce.' He was all for the extension of friendship to these other nations, and privately he hoped to visit them someday, to wonder at the new and marvellous sights of unfamiliar domains.

Worker morale certainly seemed to be staying at a steady degree of positivity – the Gorons here were working harder than ever before, perhaps due to this job being so much more fruitful in its rewards than so many other menial forms of labour. Many of the workers wore broad smiles on their sweating faces as they wrenched glowing stones and thick, rich chunks of sirloin free from walls of the excavation sites. Some put their tools down momentarily as Mornen passed, calling jovially for him to join the fun himself, before returning happily to their tasks. He smiled at all these invitations, wishing more and more that he might be able to take them up on the offers, but he continued onwards. He had another reason to be here besides this tiresome observation duty; a reason that made him smile quietly every time it floated like music on a breeze through his mind.

Down into the depths of the cavern he went, through tunnels and passageways branching off from the enormous cave that began the cavern. Gradually the dying light streaming in from the late afternoon sun outside no longer lit the way down these craggy burrows, and where this occurred torch brackets had already been fastened to the walls, their flames crackling and sputtering against the _clink_ of pick-axes and steady chatter of the Gorons working further down into the mines.  
In short order he found himself in one of the sites close to the end of the tunnels, a large hollow that had been discovered to have already been here after knocking down a great wall of rock blocking it off. Here, the firelight from the many torches sent flickering shadows dancing across the high walls, giving the silhouettes of the rising and falling tools held by the three dozen Gorons here an odd, almost sinister, quality.

Mornen shook all that off, however, as he spied her through the crowd. The reason he had not found scrambled for some feeble excuse when Morda had sent him down here.

Kampe. The woman he loved.

There she stood; axe in hand, pausing from her work for a moment to glance proudly at the loaded cart behind her she had worked all day to fill. She swept a stray lock of hair away from her face, and Mornen smiled at the soft pink sheen of it, a colour she had selected from a variety of sand dyes on a impulse one day. She loved it, as did Mornen – he thought it was the softness of the colour and the way it balanced the impish fire in her eyes that he liked the most of all. She was a small Goron, a mere 5'4 in height, but by no means petite – those arms of hers were deceptively thin, and she hid quite the degree of strength behind them. It was no wonder she loved this job as much as she did.

She rested on the upturned handle of the axe, and leaned over to her nearby friend, Fels, another slight but powerful Goron with bright, blue eyes shining out of her eager face, to share a joke and a laugh with each other. As they did, Mornen watched two Gorons nearby turn to them and join the conversation themselves; the tall, powerfully built one with flaming red eyes and unusually large rock spines down his back and a look of perpetual gruffness on his face - that was Darni, a young cousin of the Leader, Darunia,. Next to him strode an equally tall Goron, this one with his arms covered in tribal tattoos and with hair, marble white and longer even than that of Fels or Kampe, spilling untidily across his back – Rodado, who had been working these mines since their discovery some three months ago and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the dust and the darkness here.

They had formed this unit some time ago, a close set of friends who relished each others' company and yet were never sidetracked from the work, a rare quality in a work team and one that ensured they would never be in trouble with those who came on supervision tours and actually inspected their work, unlike Mornen. He would not have cared if he had come upon her and her friends sat idly on a pile of boulders engaged in nothing but gossip – but it was that happiness that Kampe's honest, hardworking spirit found in her simple labours that he adored about her so.  
He smiled quietly to himself one last time, and then re-arranged his expression into one of _faux_-sternness, and on the pretence of going over to reprimand them for their momentary pause, he strode across the cavern floor to those friends of his, and perhaps to a sweet, furtive kiss from her.

* * *

Darni, on the other hand, would have given anything to get out of this dank, depressing cave a mere minute faster than was expected.

His deep red eyes had for the last several hours been glancing unconsciously up towards the makeshift clock, which had been hoisted somewhat precariously up to the ceiling some weeks ago. He had spent most of those latter hours watching its exposed iron cogs grind along and its pointed hands mark off the time, which seemed to elapsing at a pace to rival a Fire Slug.  
By the goddesses he hated it down here. He hated it with the same burning passion which with Mornen loved Kampe and unlike them he didn't exactly care to keep that to himself of late, becoming increasingly more vocal about his disdain for the long hours spent down below the surface in this most dismal, dank, and disturbing of places. It was not as though Darni was a work-shy Goron either – once again, this was a million leagues from the truth, for he regarded physical labour in the same way his besotted (and if Darni had it reliably, perhaps soon to be betrothed) friend Mornen did – there was to him no greater happiness in the cool touch of sweat upon a Goron's brow and in the sight of the fruits of his labours. No, his issue with the mine sprang more from where those fruits of labour ultimately wound up.

He detested avarice, and avarice seemed to be all that was fuelling this venture. The Elders could, for all he cared, prattle on for days without end about how the treasures of the mines were strictly set aside for building bridges with the Hylians and the Zoras living far below the mountain, and how the general produce of the mines was being used to assure comfort for each and every Goron in the City. A worthy point that fell down under close examination – for starters he had seen many of the precious gemstone tributes being carted away down the mountain to the other provinces, and they seemed to be quite some way short of the amounts the workers were unearthing. The increasingly luxuriant lifestyles and foreign extravagances the Elders had taken to flaunting lately didn't do much to the impression that the remainder of the treasure was kept in storage either.  
As to their other point; It was true there was no Goron household anywhere that suffered from hunger, but there were also none that seemed to know the value of reserve anymore. The Gorons, lower and higher class alike, were growing fat and lazy from the abundance Death Mountain was yielding them.

The Celebration tonight was a case in point, in Darni's mind. After three solid months of stripping the seemingly endless mine of sirloin on which everyone gorged themselves as they pleased, they were now celebrating their incessant greed with a small festival, no doubt filled with Hylian vintage claret, drunken singing and a virtual avalanche of food. To Darni, the discovery of the mines was hardly an achievement, and he remained more than bemused and put out by the Elder's insistence that it be taken for it was worth, so to speak.

He sighed internally, swinging his pick axe into a deposit and wrenching out a particularly large chunk of glittering mineral ore, not particularly caring for what he was doing.

Perhaps, he thought, he simply missed the olden days. Before the tribes had united as one, Darni has been a warrior, protecting one of the large colonies on another mountain to the northeast of this one. He had never been celebrated as the proud and stoic soldier he had been and had been glad of it, for he took little joy in official recognition. The knowledge that he had protected his tribe from the monsters that had lived on that hill with them, that was enough.  
He grimaced ruefully at the memory of his guard on one especial day, where they had encountered the worst threat thus far, an infestation of Dinolfos, and warded them off after a protracted battle. The deaths of Gorons at the hands of the marauding dragon-creatures had been terrible to behold, but they had taken comfort in knowing that at the battle's end, the colony up the hillside had been safe.

Yes, he did miss those days. The purpose behind his work had been what fulfilled him, and working in this depressing place so as to overfeed a gluttonous Goron society did not exactly compare with that.  
Not to mention that he, rather unusually for a Goron, had also cared more for the open air than the darkness of these enclosed caves – especially here, in an environment that was borderline claustrophobic. How he had ended up being reassigned here after the downsizing of the Mountain Guard he would never understand. He sighed again, throwing the mineral chunk into a nearby overloaded cart, where it tottered precariously on the top of the pile.

At least he could say he had these good friends of his down here to stop him from snapping. To his right, Fels and Kampe were resting on their axes and laughing heartily at a joke his reveries had caused him to miss, though the light-hearted and even cheerful attitude to their work still helped to bring the slightest of smiles to Darni's face at his most cynical moments. To his left, Rodado was throwing his all into his labours as hard as ever, as though it was still a misty morning outside and he had just arrived, fresh and ready for work, rather than it being late afternoon, with the shining sun above slowly edging downwards towards the mountain ridges far beyond this place. Shifting his weight more evenly in preparation to swing the axe again, he happened to glance around and saw Mornen, his eyes fixed on Kampe and a happy shine in them that belied the false pretence of sterness he had tried to arrange his face into.

Darni's smile grew just a little more – Mornen was hardly subtle about his affections, and the couple's happiness had been infectious within their small circle. As much as he detested it down here, he was undeniable in good company, working side-by-side with Gorons who still seemed to appreciate the true value of a good day's work. For that at least, he could be thankful.

* * *

Kampe caught sight of Mornen just before he stepped up behind her, and an even broader grin to her face spread across her face for the sight of him. Mornen did this whenever he was sent down to the mines by his sanctimonious uncle – he would play the part of the thorough and detail-obsessed inspectorate, coming across on the pretence of lecturing her and her group for slacking off, but with all pretence completely absent from the place it really mattered to her – right there in his eyes.  
She always saw what was really in his mind through those wonderful, deepest blue eyes of his, and they shone brighter than the widest, whitest smile whenever he looked at her; she loved to catch sight of him at work as he approached her rather than missing him until he was stood right next to her, so she could first greet him with a broad smile and a teasing comment regarding his own desire to be down in these mines himself.

That he put on that irking sham for her sake and for the sake of her position, and that amidst the sweet fire the two shared in their hearts, he genuinely cared for her... by the Goddesses, how she loved him. She could find no words for how she felt for him, except that she loved him so.

Kampe and Fels turned on the spot to face him, as did Rodado and Darni, hefting their tools over their shoulders and doing their best to maintain the impression of subordinates before a superior. They were stood far away enough for the next group to maintain quiet, private conversation, and only the quirks at the edges of their mouths would have given them away to an observer as they spoke, threatening to break out into outright smiles.

"You seem to be doing pretty good down here, you know that?" Mornen said, his voice a mild and softly accented one that could still gave Kampe delicious shivers sometimes, "I'm thinking they'll want to increase shift duty down here if the mine crop gets any more fruitful."

"Then who knows, mebbe they'll be needin' you down here to finally lend a hand eh, pal? Finally get ya away from the toffs back in the City and really into the good times eh?" Rodado said, twirling his axe in his hand, a note of gruff good humour in his gravelly voice.

"There's nothing I'd like better, I can tell you that now." Mornen muttered back with a furtive chuckle.

"Good, then you'll be able to see just how much this all goes to waste." Darni grumbled in that baritone of his, an unimpressed scowl plastered all over his features, "Maybe even finally convince that Elder in your family that at this rate obesity is going to kill the Gorons even faster than the Dinolfos might once have done."

Fels laughed openly, not even bothering to conceal it.  
"Ah back in the day again are we Darni? Good to know we come down here and spend every working day with a man who can't stop reminiscing about chopping heads off with an oversized sword eh?" she said, sweetly and teasingly.

Now Kampe laughed, and noticed happily the glowing look Mornen gave her – he had always described her laugh as akin to birdsong. Even Darni allowed himself a small, begrudging smile at these words himself.

"Long as you was swingin' something, you were happy eh Darni? Can't think why you ain't smiling all day long down here!" Rodado nudged him in ribs in pointed amusement.

"True enough, true enough, though I stick by it you know. I don't like coming down here knowing that everything I send out of this mine is contributing to a virtual epidemic of slothful behaviour." Darni replied.

"Just listen to him will you?" Kampe said to Mornen, shaking her head in mild disbelief. She was glad Darni was normally such a quite soul – hearing issues like these all day every day would have driven her up the rock wall long ago. "We spend every working day in this place, earning the food we eat each night through honest labour, and he thinks that's 'slothful behaviour.'" She turned back to her work area and hefted the axe to a ready position. "Be thankful it's the Elders and Darunia in charge guys, because the Goddesses' only know what your idea of hard work is Darni."

"Yeah, and I don't much care for the idea of recruitment into the Guard. Too much hacking and slashing and too little benefit as far as I'm concerned." Fels quipped, winking evilly at Darni, who by now was trying to set his face into a disapproving scowl at those ganging up on him, his affection for them making it a little too difficult a facade to maintain.

"You all know perfectly well what I'm talking about here." he retorted mildly.

"I'm afraid I don't Darni, and you know that for certain," she said, though her voice carried no vindictiveness to this good friend of hers, and as she spoke she heard Mornen step up behind her, close enough for her to feel his hand brush against her own and send shivers up her arm. All at once, the mine around them seemed to have become empty to her except for him, and the temperature had suddenly gone up all on its own.

"No chance," he whispered, in a soft, delicious, teasing hush, "that you want to let me join in with some of that 'honest labour?'"

The other three glanced across at each other, not even trying to conceal their smirks and grins as they moved back to their posts to give the couple a snatched moment of privacy; Rodado couldn't quite resist giving Kampe the smallest of winks first though.

"Well that depends... think you're up to something that... _vigorous_?" she whispered back without turning around, and she felt him shudder in his own skin at her words, and she felt that heat increase a few degrees again.

"Oh I think I could manage... just you wait until after the Celebration tonight, Kampe. I'll match you all the way..."

It was the reverberating _claaaaaaang_ of the gong near the mouth of the tunnel that saved them – had it not gone off just then to signify the end of the work day, and to bring her back to where she was, Kampe the lower class mine-worker would have swung around then and there, all pretence tossed away, and kissed Mornen the upper class misfit then and there. But instead the piercing ring brought her to her senses again, and suddenly the mine seemed very cold once more, even with the great swarm of movement as Rodado, Darni, Fels and droves of other Gorons around her packed up their equipment, sent off the final round of carts and began to shuffle out of the cavern.

Mornen himself looked disheartened by the intrusion of the bell, but as he departed amongst the throng (he had to report back early or face Morda's uppity displeasure), he gripped her hand gently in his when everyone else's eyes were pointed elsewhere, and he smiled so warmly to her and whispered a soft goodbye to her before he disappeared into the throng. And while her heart ached at having to wait once again for some sweet, blessed time alone with Mornen later on tonight, there was the smallest drop of relief mixed in with that ache. If she had done that, in front of everyone... she did not even want to think of the reaction his repellent, sanctimonious family if they discovered that the two of them were truly, madly, deeply in love.

* * *

In the course of this so-called inspection, Mornen had had to go deep down into the long shaft of the mine, but he had not gone quite so far as to reach the end of the long tunnel.

While most of the worker forces in the mines were focused upon the extraction of resources, a small contingent of them had instead been assigned to the construction of the thoroughfare – the proposed link that the Elders were sincerely hoping would join up the mineshaft with City in the most direct (not to mention cost-effective) fashion possible. The mountain path trek between the cavern and the entrance to the City had within mere days of the mines opening been drawing complaints from those in higher ranking positions about the length of time it took for produce to make its way back to the City. If this pathway proved feasible, 'transport of goods' as the Elders referred to it could be completed in half the time, cutting down commuting time to a bare minimum, and increasing the time that could be used as working shifts by a considerable amount.

Despite all the grand ambitions for the venture, the reality of the situation was somewhat less pleasant than the aspirations surrounding it.

So far, 3 teams had been established to begin work on the proposed route, each following a different plan to maximise the likelihood of reaching the City – master diggers with innate senses of direction the Gorons might have been, but operations into unexplored areas such as these could still be hit and miss all too often. While the first two teams had began excavating separate passageways that branched off the main cavern, in a northwest direction at a 30 degree angle, the third team had instead been focusing its energies upon removing the massive mound of boulders that, for whatever bizarre reason, were piled high to mark where the cavern terminated.  
Unlike the miners working way back in the larger areas, these workers had barely even a semblance of comfortable work. Torch brackets had been haphazardly installed all across the walls, casting barely enough light by which to work, and every now and then a tumbling slab of rock would knock a torch clean off the wall, extinguishing it and plunging the area into semi-darkness until one of the workers could fumble around and place it back upon the wall.

Cornon, a large, almost rotund Goron with a sharp skullet of rock hair falling across his shoulders, had not spoken to any of the other workers around him for some time now, and that was not because he had been unfortunate enough to be amongst a team he disliked. There was little in the way of conversation going on between these Gorons, for any kind of work in the dark has little joy to it.  
Even less so when the darkness there has an icy touch of cold to it, that pierces even the heat of their brows and sends a shiver down their spines.

Cornon threw an enormous chunk of rock out of his way with no particular degree of care, and reached out behind him for his co-worker Eldi to pass him a Bomb Flower.

"With any luck this will do it." He grumbled harshly without turning around. "This should bring the last of the damned thing down."

"Funny, you've been saying that for the last hour or so and still no joy." Edli snapped irritably. "Maybe in the end you'll shut up and stop jinxing the work?"

Cornon paused and sighed, turning round on the spot to look at his good friend with a conciliatory look on his face. She herself, a tall Goron woman with long flowing yellow locks of hair draping her body, looked a little sheepish at her own outburst.  
"Look... I'm sorry Eldi. I'll shut up – in the end," he said, allowing the smallest smile to cross his otherwise scowling face. "It's just hard doing this for no results for so long, you know?"

She looked up at him, returning his gaze. "I know, I know Cornon... I'm sorry too. Here's hoping we get out of here soon, it must be close to the end of the shift by now." She smiled back at him, and the quiet, understated beauty of her features did not go unmissed by him in that moment.

"Just about, I'd say. Let's hope this is the good one eh?" he said, taking the Flower she held out to him and sparking it up with one of the matches from his belt. He stuffed it into the gap between the boulders that he had just created, the leaves crackled and sizzled under the flames, burning closer and closer to the explosive seeds within, and a few seconds after Cornen jumped off the mound and the workers stepped clear, they sparked off, and the Flower exploded.  
The resultant fireburst threw blinding light through the cavern, into every crag and fissure to line the walls and cast sharp shadows across them. In half a second the light had vanished, replaced by an avalanche of rock that crashed around them in a tumult of noise. Within moments the Flower smoke began to clear, and as the Gorons shunted the rock aside they saw the results of the detonation.

Frank shock was on all their faces when that black smoke finally cleared away.

The boulder mound had, finally, entirely collapsed from the controlled explosions that they had been using for so long, but what the detonations had uncovered was not the blocked wall that they had expected to be there, ready and waiting for another long bout of manual excavation. Instead, it was a long, deep tunnel that clearly stretched deep down into the mountain, despite its long, almost perfectly round walls being largely obscured by the great dense blanket of jet black shadows.

This, Cornon thought, was getting decidedly bizarre. This must have been the third time _at least_ that tunnels like these had been uncovered, and it of course was not unusual to find a long stretch of tunnel in such a massive network of caves – but it was to find so many like this one, where the walls reaching down into the darkness did not seem to have been formed by something so capricious as natural volcanic activity – they were almost perfectly shaped, even smooth. Even when a nearby Goron, the heavily tattooed and muscular worker Bor, pulled the brightest torch from its bracket and held it out before him down into the tunnel, there seemed to be no change to that impenetrable darkness – the torch light seemed to be halting, too afraid to go down into that darkness where, Cornon suddenly noticed, there was something emerging...

It was Eldi who named it first.  
"Where in the Goddesses' name is that _smell _coming from?_" _she practically gasped, and Cornon could not blame her; it was the smell of rotten, festering meat, and that was not a smell the average Goron was used to – it was becoming horribly pungent.

"No idea," Bor grunted simply, "though a Dinolfos graveyard would be my bet. That's just disgusting that is."

"Yes, the Dinolfos have of course made a name for themselves as miners haven't they?" one of the nearby Gorons asked in a tone of deep sarcasm.

"Well we're going to have go down there and see either..." another one started to say, in a voice full of bored resignation, but he broke off.

From far down the tunnel, a great _claaaaaaang_ rang out, bouncing down the cavern walls towards them, a more than welcome sound to their exhausted ears. Without even waiting for the nod of approval from Cornon, the team leader, Bor and the others threw down their tools to pick up again and begin work tomorrow, the thought of the dark space before them already seeping like water through a filter from their minds and replaced with daydreams and excited chatter about the Celebration as they marched back the way they had came, back to home.  
Cornon himself lingered there for only a few moments, staring down into that blackness with unblinking eyes for what felt like a very, very long time.  
Had he felt a wind... yes, that was it, a chill wind from that cave...?

Eldi tapped him lightly on the shoulder and he jumped slightly; turning round, he saw her grinning broadly at his skittishness.  
"Come on now – this will keep 'til tomorrow and you know it. It's time to enjoy ourselves, unless you'd prefer to stay down here and suffer a little longer? I'll be there to periodically kick you in the back to make it even worse, if that's what you want." Her eyes sparkled behind that mock seriousness, and Cornon could not resist the smile that tugged at his lips.

"Sounds appealing... but a double helping of bronze ore sounds even more so, what do you say? Split some?"

"How very gentlemanly of you. I'll of course get the bigger half?" she said, returning his look again.

"Naturally my dear – let's get out of this dump shall we?" Cornen laughed, and together they strode briskly back up the path to join their friends, and the general throng of workers, as they strode from the dank and dimly lit place of labour into the slowly descending sun, back up the Death Mountain Trail, towards the Goron City for what many hoped would be a real night to remember.

* * *

The Gorons working there that night did not take long to forget the shadowy tunnel they had uncovered. The prospect of a rich and plentiful meal in a place of great comfort will do that to anyone pushed to the limit by the more tedious and arduous aspects of any kind of work. Lingering on such a dismal discovery was hardly how any of them intended to spend this particular evening.

But perhaps they may have thought a little differently if they had heard it.

Because while impenetrable darkness is easy to ignore in a mineshaft where shadows are everywhere and anywhere, and while what seems like a cold, unnatural wind can easily be written off as paranoia brought on by stressful work circumstances, there was something else that would never have been so easy to shrug off, had anyone heard it.

Because who, really, could ever stand before a shadowy place, as black as night to the eye, and ignore what issued out of it now that they were all gone, like an mire of poisonous gas, ice cold and deadly dangerous...

A low, soft, chilling... growl.

* * *

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Ah, how nice it was to get back to this story! Damn it all I hate lack of inspiration/fruitless job-hunting taking up all my time...

Thank you and hailz to anyone and everyone who reads this chapter, and especial thanks to anyone who reads it and wants to read more! This particularly story, to expand on the synopsis, is a piece written to describe the Goron state of things around ten years prior to the events shown in the game 'Ocarina of Time', a nice link into the events of that game that I've done my very best to keep writing despite the infinitely boring distraction of the two negative points previously mentioned.

Please remember that all reviews and opinions, be they positive, negative, constructive or mean spirited, are welcome! Thank you all once again - the next chapter WILL be up here soon!


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